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Sudds and blockage of the River Nile on Lake
Kyoga
Sudds occur as floating land masses on the lake and they
are as old as the lake. The Nile River is the effective
creator of these sudds. As it progresses it drags the
papyrus and mud along and in the long run sudds form and
drift off into the centre of the lake where they continue
to grow into large masses. The satellite image of 1986
shows sudds floating on the lake. However, the flood event
of 1997/1998 caused a large number of papyrus sudds to
be released from the shoreline and to float downstream
towards the Nile outlet of the lake. At the point the outlet
is narrow and this caused the sudds to jam and form a
blockage in early 1998. As more floating sudds continued
to drift downstream, they added to the bottleneck,
forming a papyrus blockage 16 km long and over 80 km
2
in
area (satellite image of 2002). This vegetative blockage
slowed water flow from the Nile outlet and raised water
levels by 2m in 1999-2000. Two channels were opened by
the Directorate of Water Development (DWD) in 2001-2002
and later on a team from Egypt had to dredge to allow
water flow downstream.
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NEMA staff and Lira District officials in a follow-up meeting on enforcement of illegal settlements on sudds (2006).
The meeting took place inside a ‘Disco/Film’ make shift structure.
NEMA 2006